


just a little time

by starstrung



Category: Star Trek
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:48:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstrung/pseuds/starstrung
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard learns that Spock acts a bit differently when he's just been woken up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just a little time

As soon as his conversation with the Admiral is over, Jim loses his professional smile and slumps into the captain’s chair, groaning emphatically.

“I can’t believe we have to do this,” he mutters. For once, Leonard finds himself agreeing with him. They’re being ordered to take on fifty cadets, to let them see what life on an actual starship is like. Fifty nuisances, more like. As if he doesn’t have enough to worry without cadets underfoot.

“Captain, didn’t you serve on the U.S.S. Farragut when you were a cadet?” Sulu asks, looking over at Jim from behind his shoulder.

“Yes, but I kept my head down! Mostly. You know, some of the time. I’m sure I kept my head down at least a little.” Jim squints, like he’s trying to remember.

Leonard sighs. The new recruits aren’t just going to affect Jim. There are going to be new medic students as well as engineers, security officers, the whole lot.

“I have begun to oversee scheduling changes,” Spock informs Jim.

Leonard sighs again, perhaps a little theatrically. He wants Spock to know that he is _not happy_. Spock doesn’t make any outward acknowledgements of his distress, but he does come over to the captain’s chair from the opposite side, as if he’s avoiding Leonard. The sneaky bastard.

Spock shows Jim his PADD. Jim’s brow furrows. “Almost everyone’s shifts are being changed? Really?”

Spock nods. “It is essential to have experienced officers working at the same time as the cadets, so that they do not go unsupervised.”

“What a headache,” Leonard mutters. Spock spares him a glance before going back to his station. Leonard takes this as an invitation, and follows Spock. He spends the next five minutes bothering Spock (who doesn’t seem to mind all that much), before heading back to sickbay.

-

Leonard smirks when he sees Spock’s hands fist in the sheets. As usual, Spock is completely silent, even when Leonard is pushing his cock into him, his hips hitting Spock’s ass in an unrelenting rhythm.

Nothing passes through Spock’s lips except the occasional sharp inhale, so Leonard’s learned to see the small things, like the way Spock’s shoulders tighten just as he’s about to come, the way his belly quivers when Leonard does something _fascinating_ (Spock’s words, not his) with his fingers, the way Spock lowers his chin just the tiniest bit when he wants Leonard to go a little slower.

So when Leonard sees Spock’s fingers twisting the sheets, and his lips parting slightly to pant into the mattress, Leonard begins to go faster, hitting that place he knows makes Spock come undone.

And when he can see that they’re both close, Leonard’s fingers close around Spock’s erection and they both come, Spock as silently as always, and Leonard with a thick grunt as his vision goes white.

After he’s cleaned both of them up, he sinks into bed with a sigh, and absentmindedly begins to rub soothing circles into Spock’s shoulder with his thumb. Spock faces away from him, but after a while he turns over to face him, one hand going to touch Leonard lightly on the jaw, almost reverently.

“What is it?” Leonard asks, mind still slow and numb with pleasure. But he can still tell when something is bothering Spock.

Spock hesitates, still tracing the side of Leonard’s face with light fingers. “Perhaps I should tell you in the morning.”

Some of the pleasant numbness is replaced with worry. “Tell me now.”

Spock’s eyes move over his face, as if searching for something. “Our schedules are being changed. For the first time since the beginning of the five-year mission, we will not have the same shifts.”

Leonard turns over onto his back as he realizes what this means. Spock will be working while he’s sleeping. They won’t be able to see each other much. And if Spock is injured, Leonard won’t be on duty to patch him up.

Spock raises himself up onto one elbow and peers down at Leonard’s face, like he’s anxious to read his expression. Leonard makes a face of exaggerated annoyance for his benefit. “How long are the little shits going to be here for?” he asks Spock.

“If you are referring to the junior cadets, they will be aboard the Enterprise for approximately three Earth months,” Spock informs him.

Leonard closes his eyes, feeling bone-deep exhaustion settle over him. “Well, I’ll be countin’ down the days,” he says slowly. Right before he falls asleep, he feels Spock rest his head on his shoulder.

-

It’s painfully easy to tell who the new cadets are, just with a glance. Even though they’ve all been outfitted in the same uniforms everyone else wears, there’s something in the way they hold themselves and the way they speak, that just screams of inexperience. In terms of age, they aren’t even that much younger than the rest of the crew. The Enterprise crew was, after all, barely more than cadets when they first started. But they’ve all aged in such a short span of time.

Leonard shakes his head as he sees two cadets trailing after a senior officer. He’s got his own cadets to worry about, two young medics-to-be that won’t stop gaping at everything and asking questions. He can’t believe that it’s been such a short time since the rest of the crew were cadets like that.

Smiling to himself as he enters the sickbay, Leonard wonders if Spock was ever as bright-eyed and curious as that. He tells himself he’ll ask Spock when his shift’s done, but he remembers that when that happens, Spock’s shift will have already begun, and there won’t be any time to say good morning, let alone ask him questions about his cadet days.

-

It’s hard getting used to sleeping alone, when you’ve gotten used to have someone else there.

-

He shares a shift with Scotty, which probably is the only thing that keeps Leonard sane during the three months. The two of them spend their rec time together, which most often means drinking some of Scotty’s terrible-tasting, but incredibly effective homemade brew, and swapping disgusted stories about the cadets, one old man to another.

“I keep having these terrible nightmares,” Scotty says, stifling a belch, “that one day while I’m sleeping, one of the cadets gets it into their heads to replace all the warp core engines with internal combustion engines run on _biodiesel_.”

“That is truly terrifying,” Leonard says solemnly. He’s definitely had similar worries with his own sickbay.

“Aye,” Scotty says with a shudder as he refills their glasses.

-

Leonard jolts awake to the sound of the klaxon. His quarters are bathed in the flashing red light. He stumbles to his desk.

“Doctor McCoy to Bridge! What the hell is going on?”

Uhura answers him. “We are being hit by enemy fire.”

“Weren’t Spock and Jim on the planet overseeing diplomatic relations?” Leonard asks. The ship jolts worryingly around him. “Are they back yet?”

There is a long pause. Leonard considers going up to the bridge himself and demanding answers. But finally, Uhura answers. “We still have not been able to establish communications with them,” she says.

Leonard feels completely useless. There’s no way he can go back to sleep. He wonders if he should go down to sickbay. Just as he decides to do that, Uhura contacts him again.

“The Captain and Mr. Spock have just been beamed up. And they’ve stopped firing on us,” she says, her voice filled with barely contained relief. There’s a pause. “They’re being taken straight to sickbay.”

Leonard’s brief joy at hearing that Jim and Spock made it back to the ship vanishes. He doesn’t bother with changing out of his pajamas, just runs out of his quarters and towards sickbay. His heart pounds in his ears, and he prays that he’ll get there in time.

When he finally makes it to sickbay, he expects a scene of nightmarish chaos and ruin, perhaps with a cadet running around screaming for dramatic effect. What he finds instead is relatively calm. He tells himself it’s probably a good thing that sickbay doesn’t periodically fall apart in his absence.

He hurries over quickly to where Spock and Jim are, ignoring the strange looks he’s getting. They both look up as he approaches. Jim looks slightly sheepish, and Spock looks a little annoyed. But they’re both fine, just covered in a lot of scratches and scrapes.

He nearly collapses with relief.

“You’re okay?” he asks Spock. Chapel silently hands him a PADD with the scan results on them and he accepts it gratefully. He goes over it briefly, and confirms that Spock and Jim really are okay. All the same, he begins to check the both of them over, just to make sure.

Spock nods. “I am fine,” he says softly, allowing Leonard to shine a light into his eyes and check for a concussion.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” Jim asks. “Ouch,” he yelps, as a nurse goes over some of his scrapes with antiseptic.

“No way I could’ve gotten any rest with all that noise,” Leonard grumbles. He turns off the flashlight and bends down to press his forehead briefly against Spock’s before going to check Jim.

-

Eventually, Leonard gets a little used to it, in the same way, given enough time, one would eventually get used to never seeing the sun again or never again hearing music. He slowly adjusts. He’s able to concentrate on his work, instead of thinking about Spock and missing him.

What throws a wrench into his supposed “adjusting” is that sometimes they’re able to steal a few moments together and Leonard goes right back to missing Spock just as fiercely as ever. Sometimes they see each other in passing in the hallway. Sometimes, when work on the bridge is slow, Spock will send him a message. Since Spock doesn’t need as much sleep as he does, he’s sometimes able to visit Leonard in the sickbay, in the few moments when Leonard is free and isn’t chasing after hapless cadets. These brief, fleeting moments are enough to drive him mad.

On one memorable occasion, Spock is able to get off his shift an entire five minutes early. He wakes Leonard up with his mouth around his cock. Leonard’s pretty sure his heart still hasn’t recovered.

-

But it’s an entire month in before they get to spend any real time together. He’s sitting in his office, an hour before his shift is done, when an amazing thing happens. He finishes his last report.    

A minute later, M’Benga comes in, looking apologetic. “Hey Leonard, I couldn’t sleep. Guess my internal clock still hasn’t gotten used to the change. If you’re all done, I could take over?”

Leonard nods, still in shock. “Thanks M’Benga, I owe you one.” And just like that, he’s walking down the halls of the corridor in a daze. He thinks about what Spock is doing right now, probably asleep in bed, unaware that Leonard is a free man. He begins to walk faster, almost running back towards their quarters.

He slips inside as quietly as possible, not wanting to disturb Spock. Sure enough, Spock is sound asleep. Leonard quietly takes off his boots, and the rest of his clothes. Then he gets on to the bed. For a moment, he looks down at Spock, and wonders when the last time was that he saw Spock sleeping.

Finally, the need to touch Spock overpowers him. He cups Spock’s cheek with one hand and presses a kiss onto Spock’s cheek, just beneath the place where Spock’s dark eyelashes rest.

Spock’s eyes flutter open. He’s such a light sleeper. Leonard watches the surprise, the confusion, the quick realization pass across Spock’s face.

“Hey,” he whispers, trailing his thumb across Spock’s lower lip. Spock sighs at the touch, looks up at him with expectant eyes. Leonard smirks and bends down for a kiss.

One thing Leonard realizes very quickly is that Spock is much more responsive when he’s sleepy. He makes a small gasping noise when Leonard twists his nipple, back arching up. When Leonard removes his boxers and wraps his fingers around his cock, Spock actually _moans_.

With every touch, he twists infuriatingly beneath Leonard. His head falls back into the pillow. He’s so much more relaxed and pliant. All of it makes Leonard want to fuck Spock senseless all the more, and he wonders why they haven’t done this yet.

He pulls away briefly to get the bottle of lube and Spock makes a soft whining noise. It’s the first time he’s ever heard Spock make any such noise and, as a result, Leonard takes a little longer than usual finding the lube. When he finally finds it and gets it open he dribbles a little more onto the bed than he intended because Spock is staring impatiently at him, spreading his legs to him like he just can’t wait for Leonard to fuck him.

He knew instinctively that Spock was missing him just as much as he was missing Spock, but it’s nice to see the proof.

When he finally gets Spock ready and presses in, he sets a slow rhythm, trying to enjoy this moment for as long as it will last. Spock’s eyes flutter shut as he moves with Leonard. He still lets out the occasional breathless gasp but it seems as if he’s less sleepy now.

Still moving inside him, Leonard kisses Spock, letting their tongues slide together.

“I have missed you,” Spock says. His eyes are still half-shut.

“Me too,” Leonard answers.

Their movements become quicker after that, more fevered and fervent. As Spock has often said, it’s important to make the best of one’s time.

-

When Spock has to leave, Leonard goes to sleep content in the knowledge that Spock will be remembering him for his entire shift, or at least, every time he has to sit down.


End file.
